buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Good news arrived, and with it a fabulous brain-bath of endorphins....a warm, warm feeling spreading out from the base of my skull and turning everything I see light yellow, glowing. It turns out that D's lead test result was entirely a false positive, and his true lead levels are in the lowest category, <5. The whole event was pretty stressful on many levels, due not only to the uncertainty about whether or not our baby had lead poisoning but also because the pediatrician's office refused to respond to the messages I left them over the last few days, the ridiculous mixed messages I got between the doctors and the public health officials, plus the dose of "bad woman!" message I inferred from the part of lead poisoning prevention education that concerns maintaining a very clean, dust-free home. All released in a solid WHOOOSH when I heard that the first test result had apparently just been due to the pediatrician's office fucking up by giving the lab a contaminated sample. Ha. Ha ha. The relief was so overwhelming I still don't even feel mad that my entire week-plus of high anxiety and lost work was due to a procedural contamination error. And one that I felt I observed, even, as the method for collecting the sample involved wiping blood off of the finger of a wiggling, twisting baby over the course of several minutes while both the nurse and I repeatedly came into contact with the sampled area.
Anyway, my first order of business was to crash immediately and sleep like the dead, and my second order of business is to get my life back in order.